ACTIS - codename SMERSH
by MasterAcer
Summary: ACTIS - Alliance Counter Terrorism Intelligence and Sabotage, is a top secret umbrella organisation performing all those tasks in Alliance controlled space using their SMERSH operatives. Founded after the First Contact War, it combats such threats as Salarian intelligence, Batarian terrorism and Cerberus sabotage. The events described here are set in 2184.
1. Introduction

ACTIS - Alliance Counter Terrorism Intelligence and Sabotage

Top secret umbrella organisation encompassing Alliance's counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counter-sabotage divisions. Established after the First Contact War to combat alien intelligence activities and, recently, Cerberus actions in alliance territory. On the surface, each one of these appear to be independent entities whose existence is public knowledge. They all have their own field agent. However they are coordinated by ACTIS for higher efficiency. Only agents, field or otherwise, recruited by ACTIS and anyone with rank of Rear Admiral and higher, as well as the admiralty board, are aware of its existence. No alien entity, including the council posses any meaningful knowledge of it. ACTIS has no headquarters instead operating out of the three divisions' buildings and bases. It has its own field agents codenamed 'SMERSH' operatives, after the USSR World War 2 organization that was used as a template for creation of ACTIS. This agents operate in groups of 4 to 5 holding ranks of 1st Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander with the group leader holding the higher rank of Staff Commander. SMERSH agents have no distinguishing marks, only plastic lanyard like cards that appear empty until activated by DNA ID and show SMERSH agent's credentials and their SMERSH status. While SMERSH has its own logo for ease of recognition, ACTIS has no logo or icon as it is not supposed to be mention in anywhere but top-secret documents and speech. SMERSH agents are able to override Alliance security systems allowing them to assume any non-existent identity providing perfect recourses for undercover work. It is impossible to identify a SMERSH operative until they show their credentials. In addition to this, SMERSH agents have the authority over all ranks up to and including Rear Admirals. They can assume control of a vehicle or command of a group of soldiers to aid them in their mission. For that reason all alliance personnel are briefed upon recruitment to obey any one who presents SMERSH identification, but no explanation is given as to why. This created several rumors about SMERSH over the decades. SMERSH commands can only be belayed by their superiors: their squad leader, group coordinator (ACTIS employee of Captain rank), any Admiral or Fleet Admiral. SMERSH agents are recruited from the best agents of counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counter-sabotage divisions. They have two goals: complete the mission and quietly. Over-exposure on mission can result in court martial on offense of release of classified data. However, as court martial can be public events covered by the news, a mock offense can often be presented to prevent possible leaks on ACTIS existence.


	2. Chapter 1: The Briefing

A left hook to the jaw. So hard the mandible snaps in half, barely hanging on to the turian's face by the flesh it covered. The hostage was thrown to the floor by the punch as the whole crowd watched in horror, Cerberus soldiers holding them in place.

"You know I never understood how other people see birds in you," the assailant slowly stepped towards the turian, calm voice rolling like thunder through the dead quiet hall. He wore no helmet, only Cerberus armour with markings distinguishing him as a commanding officer.

"Skull face... maybe," he shrugged his shoulders as he leaned over the hurt civilian. "But we all know that skulls don't have eyes... so I wouldn't be able to do this!" the officer yanked the turian up with his left hand and plunged his right index finger into the hostage's left eye. The turian cried out. A few gasps were heard but most were too shocked to speak.

"W-why...?!" the turian quietly muttered in between sobs.

"You know? My father used to be a fisherman on Shanxi! One of the last things he showed me before it all happened, was how to pry open a certain type of local sea life. It was a lot like oysters on Earth, you just had had to pull harder and with a certain twist... here let me show you!" With that the Cerberus operative put his palm on the turian's left side of the face and grabbed the unbroken mandible with the right hand... and pulled... The flesh at the base of the mandible started slowly breaking away as the hostage's cry filled the cafeteria of the space station. With a grunt from the officer, the mandible came off completely. The turian cried out even louder than before and grabbed his face, agony and fear in his, now only, eye as he rolled over, face down, whimpering uncontrollably. The officer grabbed the hostage by the crest of horns on the back of his head and dragged him back out into the middle of the improvised semi-circle, formed by the crowd, the Cerberus troops and the door.

"Birds… Skull-heads… To me, looking at all that metal bone plating, you always looked more like bugs. Ready to be squashed!" he proclaimed throwing the turian on the floor. The officer raised his right foot and, before the hostage even had time to react, slammed it onto the civilian's head squashing it into a pancake! "Eugh! Even the insides are just as disgusting!" he wiped the blue blood and brain matter off his boots using the corpses' clothes as a rug.

"Kill the rest of these… creatures!" the bastard ordered. Cerberus soldiers immediately combed the crowd, dragging what few non-humans there were into a single file line by the far wall. When every alien was rounded up they herded the 4 salarians and the 2 turians into a door right out of camera's viewing angle. '…r Lock' the sign read. Realising their fate, some tried to plead and others bargain but it fell on deaf ears. Once all were inside one of the soldiers slammed the 'release' button. The screams went silent and some bodies floated by the window, too far away to distinguish their species. The 'bastard', that's how I mentally labelled him, barked a few more orders and the Cerberus forces started moving the, now fully human, crowd through the opposite door, one leading to the docking bay according to schematics. Captain paused the recording.

"Shortly, after that the power for the whole station went out," he continued the briefing. "It seems that they discharged some sort of EMP that damaged and scrubbed most CCTV footage and DNA data from station security scans. Only the short vid you were just shown survived,"

"Do we have an ID on the one with no helmet?" I asked.

"No. As you could see we had no clear visual of his face. They were very careful…" Captain continued looking down on his data pad, "Thanks to our Cerberus contacts, we know those civilians were abducted for some kind of experimentation," he looked up again: "This is a third such incident in the past two moths and a fifth similar case in the past 3 months: small remote stations or haulers boarded, all non-humans killed, all humans gone. It was categorised as an act of terrorism and deemed too vulnerable to publicity for the Counter Terrorism division to handle. So, as usual gentlemen, you have to keep it quiet, Alliance cannot afford a mass public panic at the moment–"

"Or ever..." Coover grunted with a bored grimace. Captain glared at him over his glasses:

"May I continueor would you like to take over the briefing Staff Lieutenant? No? Good. Now… your mission is to locate and detain the target; elimination is ill-advised as we need solid information for complete prevention of further such instances,"

"Otherwise they will just form another group and continue doing what they do," I finished off.

He nodded "Exactly. Now if you will excuse me, I have two more SMERSH groups to brief. Study the provided intel you are deploying tomorrow morning," he turned towards the door, "And one more thing: Staff Commander," he looked at me, "make sure your new member gets a full brief on ACTIS," I looked over at the First Lieutenant he was referring to. The poor guy sat there still in shock from his recent promotion and this morning's reassignment to a previously unknown to him ACTIS. He had no idea what he was about find out when he agreed to transfer to us from Counter Sabotage. At least his role didn't change: he would still be a field agent. But there is a big difference between an ACTIS field agent and any other Counter division field agent, in responsibility and secrecy. The captain proceeded to leave the room as my group and I stood up and saluted him on his way out. I sat back down and looked around the table, all four of my subordinates looked at me awaiting further instructions. "

I reached for my data pad: "Lets begin!"


End file.
